You can use long lines in check. The check editor for a field will let you create a line somewhat over 200 characters; you may be able to go longer if you use another editor. In your example, why not let EpiData do the checking by specifying LEGAL values for months? It seems odd to be entering month by name in any case, but you can specify the 12 legal values quite easily and train your data entry clerks that EpiData will beep for an illegal entry.
If you want your own error message to come up, an elegant way to check without the long if statement or nesting is as follows:
admit1mon AFTER ENTRY if pos("#"+admin1mon,"#JAN#FEB#MAR#APR#MAY#JUN#JUL#AUG#SEP#OCT#NOV#DEC) = 0 then HELP "Month is a 3 character field, e.g. JAN, FEB, etc" TYPE=ERROR CLEAR admit1mon GOTO admit1mon ENDIF END
Jamie
On 2010-07-27, at 8:37 PM, epidata-list@lists.umanitoba.ca wrote:
Is there a way of extending a command in the EpiData Entry CHK file beyond a single line? In my example below I've got around the problem by using nested IF... THENs but there may be another way. For instance in Stata a command can be extended over multiple lines by ending each line with ///.